2023-12-29 23:44:35
In addition to possible doubts about its constitutional fit, the amnesty law for Catalan politicians convicted by the process has revealed a problem that for the political right goes beyond legal disquisitions: Spain is being humiliated, forced to bow its head . The last stone on the dignity and neck of the nation has been nothing less than the appointment of a Salvadoran diplomat as verifier of the negotiations between the PSOE and Junts. It is an “unbearable humiliation,” according to the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. But it is not the first time that Spain has had to bend its neck ignominiously; A review of the newspaper archives and newspapers of Congress indicates that, for the right, humiliation is recurrent.
Abascal torpedoes Feijóo’s strategy against the amnesty law
Almost 19 years have passed since Mariano Rajoy began to apply the doctrine of the wounded people in parliamentary criticism. It was in 2005 and regarding anti-terrorist policy, when the young government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero asked for unity against ETA. From Rajoy’s speech on May 11, a powerful phrase is remembered: “You intend to betray the dead.” But the invective had a tagline that went more unnoticed. “I am not going to humiliate the dignity of the Spanish people,” Rajoy added.
“I don’t know who is pushing him along this line of partisanship with the anti-terrorist fight,” Zapatero then replied. He was referring veiledly to José María Aznar, who shortly after began to warn of the risk of “Balkanization” of Spain in the event of reforming the statute of autonomy of Catalonia. Aznar is today among those most offended by the “humiliation” of the amnesty.
The Popular Party regained power in 2011 and the national humiliation immediately ceased. The burning political problem at that time was the economy and by then PSOE and PP had already agreed, with Zapatero in charge, to change the Constitution at full speed to subordinate public spending to budgetary stability, as Germany insistently demanded. The PP did not see a notable transfer of sovereignty in that maneuver. The dignity of the nation remained intact and the Congress newspapers saw the references to “humiliation” disappear, which only occasionally emerged from the left to describe the situation in Greece, intervened by the troika.
Negotiating with Torra or visiting Junqueras, unbearable for Spain
The “oldest nation in Europe”, according to Rajoy’s own definition, goes through history placidly until the advent of the process and its peak moment: the referendum of October 1, 2017. From there the “humiliation” returns to parliamentary headquarters, especially for Ciudadanos, then in full swing. With Carles Puigdemont in Belgium and Oriol Junqueras in jail, the threat becomes the Catalan president Quim Torra, with whom there is no room to negotiate the budgets in 2018. It was “humiliating,” he complained in a parliamentary session in October of that year. then Ciudadanos deputy Ignacio Prendes. He also meant “humiliating the Spanish people” by not intervening in autonomy through Article 155, denounced the party leader, Albert Rivera. On the same day, the PP also understood it as a humiliation that Pablo Iglesias visited Junqueras in prison.
The humiliation was becoming more serious. For Dolors Montserrat, parliamentary spokesperson for the PP, Sánchez’s meeting with Torra in December 2018 in Barcelona had been nothing more than “the greatest democratic humiliation” suffered by the Spanish people “in the last 40 years.” The spokesperson said this in January 2019, a double election year. Two months before the first elections, humiliation also came up in the budget debate. “They have tried to perpetuate themselves with public accounts that I hope do not come to fruition.” […] in exchange, directly, for humiliating Spain by remaining in power,” launched the PP leader Pablo Casado, who no longer saw the polls for the party as very clear. The photo in Madrid’s Plaza de Colón of the three leaders of the right-wing parties, Casado, Rivera and Santiago Abascal (Vox), for the “betrayal” of Pedro Sánchez when negotiating with the Generalitat confirms that the feeling of affront was shared .
After the first elections, the possibility of a pact between PSOE and Ciudadanos was raised, but the issue was thorny, with the nation at risk. After Meritxell Batet was elected president of Congress in May at the proposal of the socialists, Albert Rivera wanted to make it clear that allowing pro-independence deputies to make references to political prisoners when swearing in their positions meant “humiliating the Spaniards again.” Although Catalonia set the tone for the offenses, the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, found time to feel insulted on behalf of the people because Arnaldo Otegi was interviewed on Spanish Television. Sánchez, “through an intermediary”, directed TVE, Abascal reasoned, so that authorizing the interview represented “one more humiliation to the victims of terrorism and to all Spaniards.”
In November there were elections again and a Government did emerge from these. His management was highly criticized by the opposition, but the argument of humiliation remained dormant until 2021, following the pardons of the procés politicians.
National sting due to the fright of Mohamed VI
The pitch has not stopped rising since then, also in relation to foreign policy and relations with Morocco, especially as a result of Sánchez’s change of position regarding Western Sahara. What hurts the most is, however, that Mohamed VI was not present when the president traveled to Rabat.
“My model is that Spain is respected and that this country cannot be humiliated because it does not humiliate anyone in turn,” Feijóo protested in this regard, after Aznar had spoken in similar terms. This happened in February, before regional and municipal elections in which the PSOE came out badly and which led Sánchez to call general elections. From then until now, there is hardly a week without national humiliation for the Spanish right.
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